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Consciousness and the Paranormal
- Thread starter Tyger
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Burnt State
Paranormal Adept
Pipe and cigar smokers are not inhaling anywhere nearly as much and as deeply as cigarette smokers are. I would suspect that the primary issue would be connected to just how big a hit of the narcotic you are getting. The deep inhale from sucking on a filtered cigarette is pumping that narcotic into the blood stream in a much more efficient manner. Comparatively, when on a pipe or a cigar the puffing approach to inhaling is very different.One last observation (I promise) on the subject of tobacco usage. But I see it as a kind of minor mystery: Why do smokers of commercially manufactured cigarettes tend to experience physical withdrawal symptoms, while cigar and pipe smokers do not? After thinking back about smokers and ex-smokers I have known, asking around and even chatting with the owner of a local tobacco shop, it would seem that the 2 types of tobacco most difficult to "kick" are cigarettes, and possibly snuff or chewing tobacco. I do still crave a good cigar or pipe, much as one might crave say, chocolate. But quitting wasn't all that hard.
Oh well....I've reached the age where I am running out of enjoyable bad habits.
The other noticeable difference i would think could involve what else is mixed into the tobacco or appears as part of the various chemicals that are in cigarettes. Beyond just the usual tar and nicotine we are also getting rocket fuel, formaldehyde and all kinds of lovely bits of chemistry that are also being delivered to the brain and become part of the addiction as well i would assume. I doubt good cigars would carry those same bits of chemical evil.
From my days of quitting i know that it takes about 48 hours for nicotine to leave the body and so it's simple willpower to kill the habit after that, or so i thought, but actually it takes at least another week or more for all the other chemicals to clear the body and so the cravings continue in that interim.
But i will enjoy your lament as the older i get the harder it is to maintain any decent level of indulgence compared to the more wily days of youth.
S
smcder
Guest
smcdr, Thanks for the link. Looks interesting and I have it bookmarked and look forward to later recreational perusal.
One last observation (I promise) on the subject of tobacco usage. But I see it as a kind of minor mystery: Why do smokers of commercially manufactured cigarettes tend to experience physical withdrawal symptoms, while cigar and pipe smokers do not? After thinking back about smokers and ex-smokers I have known, asking around and even chatting with the owner of a local tobacco shop, it would seem that the 2 types of tobacco most difficult to "kick" are cigarettes, and possibly snuff or chewing tobacco. I do still crave a good cigar or pipe, much as one might crave say, chocolate. But quitting wasn't all that hard.
Oh well....I've reached the age where I am running out of enjoyable bad habits.
The third charge against old age is that it LACKS SENSUAL PLEASURES. What a splendid service does old age render, if it takes from us the greatest blot of youth! Listen, my dear young friends, to a speech of Archytas of Tarentum, among the greatest and most illustrious of men, which was put into my hands when as a young man I was at Tarentum with Q. Maximus.
"No more deadly curse than sensual pleasure has been inflicted on mankind by nature, to gratify which our wanton appetites are roused beyond all prudence or restraint. It is a fruitful source of treasons, revolutions, secret communications with the enemy. In fact, there is no crime, no evil deed, to which the appetite for sensual pleasures does not impel us. Fornications and adulteries, and every abomination of that kind, are brought about by the enticements of pleasure and by them alone.
Intellect is the best gift of nature or God: to this divine gift and endowment there is nothing so inimical as pleasure. For when appetite is our master, there is no place for self-control; nor where pleasure reigns supreme can virtue hold its ground. To see this more vividly, imagine a man excited to the highest conceivable pitch of sensual pleasure. It can be doubtful to no one that such a person, so long as he is under the influence of such excitation of the senses, will be unable to use to any purpose either intellect, reason, or thought. Therefore nothing can be so execrable and so fatal as pleasure; since, when more than ordinarily violent and lasting, it darkens all the light of the soul."
- Cicero
Quoting is my anti-drug!
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Burnt State
Paranormal Adept
Sailing to Byzantium
by W. B. Yeats
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
by W. B. Yeats
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
“Holiday in Reality” by Wallace Stevens
I
It was something to see that their white was different,
Sharp as white paint in the January sun;
Something to feel that they needed another yellow,
Less Aix than Stockholm, hardly a yellow at all,
A vibrancy not to be taken for granted, from
A sun in an almost colorless, cold heaven.
They had known that there was not even a common speech,
Palabra of a common man who did not exist.
Why should they not know they had everything of their own
As each had a particular woman and her touch?
After all, they knew that to be real each had
To find for himself his earth, his sky, his sea.
And the words for them and the colors that they possessed.
It was impossible to breathe at Durand-Ruel’s.
II
The flowering Judas grows from the belly or not at all.
The breast is covered with violets. It is a green leaf.
Spring is umbilical or else it is not spring.
Spring is the truth of spring or nothing, a waste, a fake.
These trees and their argentines, their dark-spiced branches,
Grow out of the spirit or they are fantastic dust.
The bud of the apple is desire, the down-falling gold,
The catbird’s gobble in the morning half-awake—
These are real only if I make them so. Whistle
For me, grow green for me and, as you whistle and grow green,
Intangible arrows quiver and stick in the skin
And I taste at the root of the tongue the unreal of what is real.
I
It was something to see that their white was different,
Sharp as white paint in the January sun;
Something to feel that they needed another yellow,
Less Aix than Stockholm, hardly a yellow at all,
A vibrancy not to be taken for granted, from
A sun in an almost colorless, cold heaven.
They had known that there was not even a common speech,
Palabra of a common man who did not exist.
Why should they not know they had everything of their own
As each had a particular woman and her touch?
After all, they knew that to be real each had
To find for himself his earth, his sky, his sea.
And the words for them and the colors that they possessed.
It was impossible to breathe at Durand-Ruel’s.
II
The flowering Judas grows from the belly or not at all.
The breast is covered with violets. It is a green leaf.
Spring is umbilical or else it is not spring.
Spring is the truth of spring or nothing, a waste, a fake.
These trees and their argentines, their dark-spiced branches,
Grow out of the spirit or they are fantastic dust.
The bud of the apple is desire, the down-falling gold,
The catbird’s gobble in the morning half-awake—
These are real only if I make them so. Whistle
For me, grow green for me and, as you whistle and grow green,
Intangible arrows quiver and stick in the skin
And I taste at the root of the tongue the unreal of what is real.
boomerang
Paranormal Adept
Tyger
Paranormal Adept
Direct evidence of a wikipedia copy-and-paste: note the direct similarity word-for-word of the bolded line above and my copy-and-paste from wiki - "Stevens allegedly assaulted Ernest Hemingway at a party at the Waddell Avenue home of a mutual acquaintance in Key West. Stevens broke his hand, apparently from hitting Hemingway's jaw, and was repeatedly knocked to the street by Hemingway." At no time is this quoted text presented by the poster as a quote nor attributed to wikipedia - rather, it is presented as their own composition. It is an example of how heavily dependent on other sources someone is, and how freely copy-and-paste is done, without attribution.
Please note the use of "allegedly" and "apparently" in the wiki article - and keep in mind the biases endemic to wikipedia that results in what they let stand. The use of the two cautionary words is their attempt to protect themselves while still repeating the gossip - that added fuel to someone dissing the poetry using a subjective ad hominem in order to diss another poster. Complicated but very evident for anyone familiar with what has gone on between posters on this thread and elsewhere. A personal fight is being carried to subtle extremes.
S
smcder
Guest
I used to box and once went nine days without solid food after a match because I forgot my mouthpiece. I now consider it repellant - it's potentially more brutal than UFC as it relies entirely on head and torso blows with 8oz gloves (this allows one to hit harder than ungloved or 16oz) - an untrained man could easily break his hand against the thick bones of the skull and jaw of an opponent. Amateur and Olympic boxing do allow head gear and kidney belts. Hemingway strikes me as someone with issues around courage and masculinity but I don't know much about him. If, in fact, Stevens was knocked repeatedly to the ground by Hemingway - it could mean Stevens was a fairly tough customer, Hemingway was drunk, or that Hemingway was playing with him - or most likely? All three
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Burnt State
Paranormal Adept
That's a good personal anecdote. I grew up watching boxing on tv - my father thought it was not even a sport - how could anything whose sole aim be to pummel your opponent be called a sport, he would chastise me. Ironically, I had a dentist once remark that i should have been a boxer as my jaw's bone density is so high it would be impossible to break my jaw in the ring.
Hemingway had so many issues with his own sexuality, as seen in the work and biography. All his machismo was about overcompensation, while in the short stories we see the recurrence of these unique moments of male bonding that appear to transcend friendship. It's a sad comment, such a talented writer ruined by the confused social mores in our time. Yet, those deep internal conflicts are probably what makes writers in the first place.
S
smcder
Guest
That's funny as it's exactly what my oral surgeon told me a few years back . . . However I doubt any jaw short of Andre the Giant is unbreakable and a knockout punch obviously doesn't require any broken bones.
Burnt State
Paranormal Adept
Well there you go! Finally a conspiracy theory I can buy into: the dental profession encourages boxing to drum up business. They must teach that at dental school.
S
smcder
Guest
My current dentist is a childhood friend - when I showed him a quarter I bent between my teeth, he showed me a cracked molar and encouraged me no farther.
S
smcder
Guest
Lateral and incisive, no doubt . . .
Dr Henry Pugil, I presume. Strictly Marquis of Queensbury now lads!
S
smcder
Guest
Marquess of Queensbury . . .
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
I'd always imagined Hemingway as some relatively frail alcoholic writer intellectual, so stumbling upon this colorful part of his past is an unexpected and interesting surprise.
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